1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to fishing equipment in general, and more precisely to a waist belt with attached fabric pack having fabric compartments retaining generally rigid containers for carrying fishing items such as hooks, sinkers, lures, flies and the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Shoreline fishermen have for many years faced the dilemma of how to carry the necessary fishing equipment while wading in the water, or walking along the shore and fishing. Most tackle boxes are not feasible for numerous reasons to carry out into the water, and running back and forth to the shore takes considerable time and can scare the fish, which is undesirable if the fish are biting. Basket type creels, while supported by an arm strap, are cumbersome, and excessive time is also required to search through and select individual items from the one large main creel compartment. Fishing vests provide smaller individual compartments, but the vests must be worn by the fishermen, which in warm weather can be disagreeable. Additionally, many of the compartments on fishing vests are difficult to access, being too close to the face and flat on the chest rendering it difficult to identify items therein and to quickly and conveniently acquire the item desired. Furthermore, vest compartments are typically of soft fabric which is subject to being snagged by individual hooks or hooks on lures or flies. Such soft flexible compartments by their very nature define deep rather tights cracks at the bottom which hide and render it difficult to retrieve small items such as sinkers, particularly small split-shot sinkers when stored in these vest pockets.
Belt mounted accessories for fishing tackle have also been offered. A belt-mounted fishing tackle carrier is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,323,181, issued to J. Spasoff on Apr. 6, 1982. The Spasoff device is a rigid plastic compartmentalized structure which is attachable to the fisherman's belt. One disadvantage of this tackle carrier is the limited number of compartments. The Spasoff device shows only three storage compartments which are specifically sized and structured for carrying bait. This greatly reduces or eliminates space for carrying lures and other necessary fishing tackle. While extension of the number of compartments could be provided, the rigidity of the device necessarily limits the number and size thereof due to the unfeasibility of attaching this device to the fisherman's belt. The Spasoff device also does not appear to provide any place to securely carry items such as a small container of liquid refreshments, a snack or lunch, or an extra reel or spool of line, all being items which a fisherman may wish to carry.
Therefore, there is a need in the field to provide the fisherman with a lightweight, comfortable, and quickly accessible fishing tackle storage device structured for storage of a wide variety of fishing equipment and other items the fisherman may wish to carry, and to store them in a manner which allows the fisherman to quickly retrieve the item desired.